Junior Nickolas McKenzie, who didn't allow any goals in three regional playoff games, finally gave one up to junior forward Casey Markham five minutes, 17 seconds into the third period of Wednesday's match-up.

Junior forward Willem Gauthier ended the scoring with an empty-net goal with 52 seconds left to play.

Senior forward Eric Hillock scored Sault's first goal on a slapshot from the left point 6:22 into the second stanza. Gauthier added a one-timer from the high slot 4:20 later, giving the Blue Devils a two-goal cushion.

"Anytime you score the first goal in a playoff game, it's huge," said Sault coach John Ferroni. "It seems like when we do score, we score in bunches. This was pretty similar to our game with them at Christmas time (a 6-3 Sault victory in the MacInnes Holiday Classic Dec. 27). This was basically a one-goal game halfway through. Houghton kept coming at us. They have a nice, young team."

Sault had several scoring chances in the last three minutes of the opening period.

During that span, Houghton's sophomore goaltender Jayson Wiitala made a pair of stick saves and iced the puck moments after four Sault players stormed the net in search of a rebound shot.

"Our scouting report on them told us to shoot high and crash the net for rebounds, but their goaltender stood tall for the first 1 1/2 periods," said Ferroni. "We went top-shelf on both goals in the second period, and we needed those. He (Wiitala) didn't do anything wrong. I don't think any other goaltender would have stopped those."

"They had a few more opportunities then we did in the first period," said coach Markham. "We felt good going into the locker room with a scoreless tie. We felt we had some momentum, but it didn't work out that way. We just didn't convert on the opportunities we had."

Wiitala stopped 29 shots for the Gremlins, who were outshot 33-18. McKenzie had 17 saves.

"I thought our goaltender did an excellent job," said coach Markham. "He kept us in the game. It's always disappointing to lose a game like this, but we had an awesome season. We're proud of what we accomplished this year."